Age of Adepts

It was an entirely different world!

This intense feeling would wash over Greem every time he traveled in the World of Adepts, giving him a unique experience every time.

On Earth from his previous life, all of the photosynthetic energy for plant life came from the sun alone. Consequently, the weather, environment, humidity, and temperature of the region were all layered predictably and uniformly.

However, in this strange high-magic world, every lifeform and geographical feature was affected by the flow and current of magical power, resulting in manifestations of all sorts of strange and bizarre features.

Overall, the effect of the high-magic environment caused the plants and animals to be robust and large. Towering plants measuring over a hundred meters were everywhere. Moreover, many of them were showing signs of turning into magical plants. Meanwhile, the animals were shockingly ferocious and terrifying. Even the cute rabbits that people on Earth loved could evolve into carnivorous magical creatures. Such creatures were so violent that they even put the wolves on Earth to shame.

Though the humans in such a high-magic environment had also evolved to be stronger, faster, and had more stamina than their Earth counterparts, they were still at a massive disadvantage compared to wild magical creatures.

If it weren’t for some of the humans breaking beyond their physical and mental limits and taking hold of new supernatural powers, they would never have been the rulers of this plane.

The environment where humans lived had also been changed significantly due to the abnormal flow and gathering of magical aura.

There was the vast and boundless Black Forest, magical swamps constantly obscured with dense and thick fog, deserts that spanned for eternity, wild and untamed jungles, dangerous and gigantic mountain ranges, and white kingdoms of nothing but ice and snow.

The Continent of the Adepts as seen from above the flying ship was like multiple massive yet different continents. From a distance, one could always find some exotic locations in the unpopulated swamps and mountains. The climate and environment in these locations were discordant from the surrounding area. They were like magical gems scattered across the continent, breathtaking and astonishing.

These places were largely created due to abnormal magical aura currents caused by the unique development of geographic features. Then, as the adepts put in the effort to modify these places, they were turned into resource sites advantageous for magical plants and creatures to grow.

From then on, the adepts gained a stable, long-term source of the incredible amount of adept resources they required!

One could say without any reservations that the adepts’ stable growth had an inseparable relation to their development and use of such resource sites.

As such, when the flying ship cruised above the layer of clouds, and Greem saw all the mountains and rivers below him, a strange emotion slowly grew within his heart.

The geography below him wound and stretched with mountain ranges everywhere. Some extended for tens of thousands of kilometers, while others were steep and dangerous. The specks of human villages, towns, and cities were scattered all across them. Throwing in the dots of lakes and rivers in-between, a perfect human world appeared before Greem.

Yet, this perfect human world was, in truth, controlled by adept organizations of various sizes.

In the World of Adepts, the vast number of undeveloped wildlands and the boundless Black Forest meant that human kingdoms required the protection of powerful adepts. Without the adepts, the humans would have a hard time defending against the invasions of these powerful magical creatures, wild races, and mutated monsters.

There was no pure human kingdom. The rulers of most city-states would choose to be subordinate to a powerful adept organization, providing yearly offerings in exchange for protection. The two forces benefitted each other and formed a system of their own.

As such, the true owners of this seemingly peaceful, calm, and beautiful land were not the ordinary humans working hard upon it, but the massive group of adepts that resided at the top of the golden pyramid of the human world.

Supposedly, the difficulty of advancing to become an adept meant that this peak of the pyramid should be a small minority that possessed tremendous power. However, with the massive extension to their lifespans upon advancing, the adepts had turned from a ‘small minority’ into an extremely large group after tens of thousands of years had passed.

If these people remained in the World of Adepts, the world itself would have had a hard time satisfying their incredible amount of needs. Out of consideration for the long-term development of the World of Adepts, these powerful adepts all left their homeworld, both voluntarily and involuntarily. They ventured into the outer realms and created a whole new kind of world in the depths of space.

Those who remained in the World of Adepts, truthfully speaking, were only seeds of the adept faction!

Every hundred years, the World of Adepts had to send a new batch of fresh blood to the adept faction in the outer realms. That was how they continued to extend the adept civilization!

…………

Greem slowly closed the book in his hands.

He closed his eyes and gradually reflected on his understanding of the entire adept civilization.

He might not know much about the secrets of the ancient adepts, but it didn’t stop him from observing and thinking about the development of the adept civilization from the perspective of a third party.

It was also one way and one method by which high-grade adepts got to know themselves and the world around them.

Trying to break through the limits of the plane and obtain the law powers of a higher grade were impossible if a higher-grade adept didn’t first understand the development of the planar world, or have their path align with the origin consciousness of the world.

Take Greem, for example!

Since he chose fire specialization, he could only try his best to master the laws of fire.

There were two paths available to him if he wanted to achieve this goal.

One was spending years to research and practice, continually refining his origin compatibility with the laws of fire, and using time and experience to break through the threshold of those laws.

Most creatures of the Fire Elementium Plane advanced through this method.

However, this method had both upsides and downsides.

The upside was that whenever an adept broke through the thresholds of these laws, their power would improve rapidly, allowing them to become a member of the principle adepts. The downside was that such a process required so much time that it was depressing. It was impossible to bear through that long and painful timespan if you were not an elementium creature who lacked any concept of time.

Greem might have an extremely long lifespan now, but it was still far from the near-immortality of Elementium Creatures. Thus, the advancement method of the elementium creatures was not suitable for him.

The second method was to use external items to shorten this process of research and experience indirectly and, thus, complete the necessary accumulation of knowledge on the laws of fire.

According to Greem’s understanding, most high-grade adepts actively participated in planar wars. It was not only to develop and strengthen their adept faction but also to obtain those exceedingly rare ‘planar origins.’

Planar Origins were manifestations of the planar laws of a planeworld.

These planar laws were usually abstract and intangible, born from the origin consciousness of the planar world, before being woven into a massive and invisible web that covered the entire planeworld and all of its substances and creatures.

Under ordinary circumstances, all substance and life within the plane would follow the laws of the plane. They would be born, grow, strengthen, age, and die in an orderly fashion. Though every rock, piece of dirt, life, and soul had their own unique features and would undergo a unique life of their own, every single one of them was in fact governed by a tight, fine web from behind the scenes.

This web was the planar laws that enveloped and permeated everything and anything!

However, these were only the usual circumstances.

Under certain abnormal situations, the planar web of the planar worlds would also show signs of malfunction and irregular law fluctuations. These abnormalities could easily result in the unexpected deaths of millions of creatures in the world, causing damage and loss to the planar web.

This portion of planar power that had wandered away from the web would form ‘origin substances’ when they combined with elements within the plane. These so-called ‘origin substances’ were, in truth, wondrous objects that contained the planar laws within them.

If one were to obtain such an origin substance and use special methods to extract the planar law powers contained within, they would be able to use it to great effect when understanding the planar laws.

If a high-grade adept didn’t want to fail to comprehend the planar laws before they died, searching for such origin substances was undoubtedly a workable path of action!

Of course, such origin substances were rare and few within a plane.

However, planar worlds that had been severely injured and damaged due to the invasion of other species was a different story. The damage to the planar origin and the destruction of the planar web would cause the chance of origin substances appearing to increase dramatically. Some more extreme adepts would even intentionally damage the planar stability of the plane they were invading to facilitate the birth of origin substances.

The mass deaths and extinction of planar creatures during this process was none of the adepts’ concern.

The reason the adepts were labeled as an evil faction perhaps had to do with this cruel and terrifying way of doing things!

From what Greem understood in the Spirit Illusion Realm, anything that was labeled with ‘origin substance’ was a Fourth Grade adept resource. Adepts below Fourth Grade did not have the wealth nor power even to get involved with such items.

Of course, their price matched their names. Each and every one of them was shockingly expensive.

Though Greem had the assistance of the Chip and could shorten the time required to comprehend the laws of fire by a hundred times, it was still impossible to finish the process without a minimum of a thousand years.

If he had the fortune to advance to Fourth Grade, he would probably have to walk upon the difficult path of searching everywhere for fire origin substances!

Greem thought a bit about his future before adjusting his posture on the deck chair and letting the warm sun shine upon him. His entire body was filled with ease and relaxation.

All the fighting and killing over the past few years had constantly kept his spirit in a tense state.

This time, there were no urgent objectives he had to complete on this trip. Thus, Greem treated it as a sightseeing trip and let himself relax completely.